There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth. While the top 1 percent of income earners took home 93 percent of the growth in incomes in 2010, the households in the middle — who are most likely to spend their incomes rather than save them and who are, in a sense, the true job creators — have lower household incomes, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1996. The growth in the decade before the crisis was unsustainable — it was reliant on the bottom 80 percent consuming about 110 percent of their income.

Second, the hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses.

Third, the weakness of the middle class is holding back tax receipts, especially because those at the top are so adroit in avoiding taxes and in getting Washington to give them tax breaks. The recent modest agreement to restore Clinton-level marginal income-tax rates for individuals making more than $400,000 and households making more than $450,000 did nothing to change this. Returns from Wall Street speculation are taxed at a far lower rate than other forms of income. Low tax receipts mean that the government cannot make the vital investments in infrastructure, education, research and health that are crucial for restoring long-term economic strength.

Fourth, inequality is associated with more frequent and more severe boom-and-bust cycles that make our economy more volatile and vulnerable. Though inequality did not directly cause the crisis, it is no coincidence that the 1920s — the last time inequality of income and wealth in the United States was so high — ended with the Great Crash and the Depression. The International Monetary Fund has noted the systematic relationship between economic instability and economic inequality, but American leaders haven’t absorbed the lesson.

Our skyrocketing inequality — so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” — means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. Children in other rich countries like Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have a better chance of doing better than their parents did than American kids have. More than a fifth of our children live in poverty — the second worst of all the advanced economies, putting us behind countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Greece.

Paul Goble Staunton, July 3 – Two United Russia Duma deputies have introduced legislation that would require all schools in the Russian Federation to use a single set of textbooks for basic courses, a step they say is necessary to...

Paul Goble Staunton, July 4 – A call by some Duma members for the Russian government to review and declare illegal the Soviet government’s recognition of Baltic independence in September 1991 has attracted widespread attention and...

The White House tried Sunday to garner public support for the Senate’s upcoming ObamaCare vote, with a top President Trump adviser saying the pending legislation is still alive and that a “vast majority of Americans” will benefit.

Monica S Mcfeeters's insight:

The Republicans all say we need to shop across state lines to fix the health insurance by allowing consumers to shop across state lines and not letting people wronged or destroyed by medical care personnel, tools or medicine sue through tort reform.... now they want the states to handle it all within the state borders just to get rid of obama care? They also fought a Obamacare's version to include and offer all uninsured the option to buy into federal insurance group plans like the Senators enjoy. The GOP was Misleading the public to think that allowing uninsured to join their own insurance options was a government take over of medical care and insurance. It was not. The federal government has the ultimate group of shopping across state lines insurance offerings and the only ones. Federal plans are normally listings of regional large companies the federal government contracts with and unlike most employer insurance the federal employees really have choices among a number of companies and group plans. GOP is not pro consumer.

The New Year—both 2014 and the Lunar New Year—provides a time for reflection and visioning; a time to ask: “How do we properly weave our collective work to push forward?” In previous posts, I've talked about the term Ho‘owaiwai as a way to articulate what families have recognized as genuine wealth: relationships that are the …

The FSB, a successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, will help the upper chamber of the Russian parliament prepare its list of foreign organizations deemed to be a threat to the country's security, a Federation Council senator said Friday.

For More Information: Community Weaving, www.communityweaving.orgPurpose: To weave the human and tangible resources of the grass roots with the knowledge and skills of formal systems using Web-based technology.Outcomes:

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